What birds (are you/have you been) watching? What birds have been watching you?

[ardcarp]

Mrs Ardcarp has texted very excitedly from Skoma (she's left me running the show back home) saying she is knee deep in puffins, and the Manx shearwaters all come in at night. She's also seen her first redpoll (lesser??) and a short-eared owl. The island is apparently full of bluebells and sea thrift. (Did Delius get it wrong?)

[Richard Tarleton]

Excellent - a very good move to stay over, not least for the nocturnal manxies but also to get the island to yourself once the daily visitors have all gone. I see from yesterday's blog that there was a black-headed bunting there, a bird I last saw in Croatia. Bluebells, thrift and campion - amazing colours. Skomer by the way

[Serial_Apologist]

Mrs Ardcarp has texted very excitedly from Skoma (she's left me running the show back home) saying she is knee deep in puffins, and the Manx shearwaters all come in at night. She's also seen her first redpoll (lesser??) and a short-eared owl. The island is apparently full of bluebells and sea thrift. (Did Delius get it wrong?)

I get your drift...

[greenilex]

Last week the dog and I were walking around the duck pond/wildfowl lake on Southampton Common, which is protected by a substantial fence. But as we passed under a particular oak tree well outside the perimeter I glanced up to see three mallards on a fairly high, flat bough: two drakes and a duck, very cosy. Even the dog was a little surprised to see them.

[Richard Tarleton]

Last week the dog and I were walking around the duck pond/wildfowl lake on Southampton Common, which is protected by a substantial fence. But as we passed under a particular oak tree well outside the perimeter I glanced up to see three mallards on a fairly high, flat bough: two drakes and a duck, very cosy. Even the dog was a little surprised to see them.

They can nest in trees, though perhaps they were just roosting out of reach of foxes.... From Wildfowl, by Steve Madge and Hilary Burn, ""Nest site also varied: from ground, where hidden amongst vegetation, to tree holes and nest boxes, and even old tree nests of large birds...."

The drakes could have been a couple of vinteuil's metrosexual hipster mallards....

[Vox Humana]

I'm just back from a few hours up on Dartmoor. Quite a few Buzzards floating around, hundreds of crows, several Skylarks singing, a few Meadow Pipits and a couple of Wheatears. Faintly heard a Cuckoo in the far distance. Not a lot else, but that's what the open moorland is like. I was rather hoping that this Lammergeier might show up since it was seen not far from Princetown recently and it was reported again this morning, but there was no sign of it. I wasn't surprised. It seems that there has been a lot of wishful thinking going on concerning this bird.

[Richard Tarleton]

The BBC news item wrongly states it's been reintroduced to the Pyrenees - it was never extinct in the Pyrenees! I've seen many there, mostly on the Spanish side....but saw my first ever in the Whote Mountains in Crete.

Quebrantahuesos in Spanish!

[HighlandDougie]

The BBC news item wrongly states it's been reintroduced to the Pyrenees -

Quebrantahuesos in Spanish!

They have been re-introduced along the chain of the Alps - at least at the western end. If anyone is interested, there is a relevant website:

http://www.gypaete.ch/projet.php?&langu=en

I occasionally see one from my balcony in the Alpes Maritimes - but you usually have to go up much higher into the mountains to stand a good chance of seeing them. Magnificent birds, though (as are sea eagles, which I saw a couple of weeks ago on the Island of Harris, where, which I couldn't quite believe but it has been certified, I also spotted a black kite having a leisurely fly around Tarbert - pretty common in Switzerland, yes, but in the Outer Hebrides?).

Still on birds but not large raptors, this morning's 'Breakfast on 3' segment on song thrush song suddenly had me recall that there seem to be more thrushes around this year - there are two pairs nesting in and around my garden - and almost winning the Avian Meistersinger heats being held around 4.30am every morning at the moment (it gets light early here in the far north) but not quite pipping the garden warblers to it. Like the wren, quite how such a small bird can produce so much sound is a mystery to me.

[Richard Tarleton]

They have been re-introduced along the chain of the Alps - at least at the western end. If anyone is interested, there is a relevant website:

http://www.gypaete.ch/projet.php?&langu=en

I occasionally see one from my balcony in the Alpes Maritimes - but you usually have to go up much higher into the mountains to stand a good chance of seeing them. Magnificent birds, though (as are sea eagles, which I saw a couple of weeks ago on the Island of Harris, where, which I couldn't quite believe but it has been certified, I also spotted a black kite having a leisurely fly around Tarbert - pretty common in Switzerland, yes, but in the Outer Hebrides?).

Thanks for the link Dougie. The ultimate bird to have on your garden list, I'd say! My only French gypaètes barbus (while walking GR10) were in the Cauterets and Gavarnie area. I've done the Alpes Maritimes section of GR5, but we saw precious few birds of prey.

Haven't we mentioned Alexis Nouailhat before? Delightful cartoons in this
On the Spanish side, I've seen them the length of the Pyrenees - from Aigues Tortes in Catalonia to Foz de Arbayun near Pamplona, roughly a pair per valley. Sad that modern regs about the tidy disposal of farm animals work against vultures generally, with reintroduction schemes often depending on artificial feeding. One of my first sightings was in the Ansó Valley in Aragón - we followed a vast flock of sheep up to their summer pastures. The shepherd killed a sickly sheep by slitting its throat and left it out in the open, we waited to see what happened. Ravens were there in 15 minutes, within half an hour there were 40 Griffon vultures flopping around the carcass. When we returned later, nothing but the skeleton. Bearded vultures turn up later, for the bones

[Dave2002]

Odd how some websites refer to birds "being born" - I thought most of them hatched out - e.g http://www.gypaete.ch/projet.php?&langu=en

I think we had buzzards very close to our garden a few days ago, though we've had red kites before now.

Today we have a pair of goldfinches, though I'm struggling to get a good photo of them. I think we only get them when we don't encourge other birds, so there is a feeder with nyger seeds, but the other nearby feeders are deliberately empty.

[Dave2002]

The goldfinches seem to be here for a while. Here is one of them.

[Richard Tarleton]

Excellent! Ours are doing well on the dandelion seeds on what passes for our lawn.

[Serial_Apologist]

The goldfinches seem to be here for a while. Here is one of them.

He (?) looks well fed!

[Vox Humana]

He (?) looks well fed!

Most likely to be a "she", I'd say. There's a very subtle difference between the sexes in the amount of red on the side of the head, although it seems this feature may not be a 100% reliable. http://two-in-a-bush.blogspot.co.uk/...hic-study.html

[Dave2002]

Most likely to be a "she", I'd say. There's a very subtle difference between the sexes in the amount of red on the side of the head, although it seems this feature may not be a 100% reliable. http://two-in-a-bush.blogspot.co.uk/...hic-study.html

Do they tend to go around in male/female pairs?

On the other side of that feeder there was another one. I just tried to simplify/improve the image.